Gone

Off to Catalina Island! I'm psyched for a car ride where I get to sleep a ton, so it should be good. Otherwise, I have pretty much nothing to say here, just that I have to go and do final packing things and eat breakfast!
TTFN
Sam

Firefighters!

Since my beloved internet is struggling a bit, I will take a while to add the last few days of my life to the blogosphere.
As mentioned in the previous episode, this week was much-anticipated chainsaw training. A bunch of lumberjacky guys with crazy stories came in and showed how to clean, sharpen, dismantle, assemble, troubleshoot, start, manage, balance, and handle chainsaws.
If you really think about it, chainsaws are a pretty crazy invention. Someone looked at an old circular saw and went “how can I carry that around and make it long and pointy?” and thought of running a chain with teeth around a bar of metal. That, if you ask me, is one of the pinnacles of genius. Not exactly a simple concept.
Digressions aside, we spent two days in a classroom learning about the parts of the saw, maintenance bits, safety, and how to make a tree fall down. Then we got to head up to El Dorado national forest and wave them around. Much to my disappointment, we didn’t go back today, so I didn’t get to actually fell a tree, but I got at least two hours in on the saw hacking through low lying brush and bushes. I’m not even close to a pro, but at least I can wade through brush without my back seizing up. It’s going to be a pretty awesome time if we start using saws on a regular basis.
Another really cool thing about running saw is the specific roles and positions. Usually saw teams work at the front of firefighters who are cutting a fire line, a strip of bare ground designed to deny wildfires more fuel and contain them. The sawyer (guy with saw) is partnered with a swamper, who grabs everything that he cuts and throws it away from the fireline and the fire. The cool part is that the swamper is usually right behind the sawyer (think inside personal bubble). They have to be really attuned to how each other functions to do things as fast as possible without mangling anything important.
When we use the saws, we get protective gear called chaps. Chaps are essentially nylon covers that buckle around each leg. Unbuckled, they are very cowboy-esque. The protective part of the chaps are Kevlar fibers that line the inside of the nylon. If a saw blade cuts into the chaps, the Kevlar tangles the crap out of the chain and the inner parts. Granted, if you’re going full power and cut into some chaps, you will probably lose a leg. But if a saw is idling, it usually prevents major injuries.
A “chap cut” is when someone loses focus for a second and lets the saw blade hit their chaps. Usually they stopped pulling the saw trigger a few seconds ago and consider the saw “safe,” but the inertia on the saw blade keeps the teeth turning. We had a guy get a chap cut, and the blade, without the chaps, would most likely have nicked a piece of his femur off. As it was, he was fine, but a little embarrassed. There are so many elements to firefighting culture that are ridiculously badass. Chap cuts are really really embarrassing (they don’t even like to talk about their own). When they are clearing really heavy brush, they roll up their sleeves and see who can get the most cut-up arms. When working a fire, people have gone for over 35 hours working the line. It’s insane.
One more blog tomorrow, then I’m off to Catalina (one day early). Most likely will not be able to blog until December 17th. But, you never know. I’ll keep some kind of a journal type thing that I can transcribe when I get back.

The Grass Here is Devilish

En route to officialdom service projects. This week is my team's final stretch before we head off on our first SPIKE (we leave on tuesday) on Catalina Island. I'm ready to leave Sacramento, as nice as the city is.
Official induction for all of AmeriCorps was on friday. So, I am now an official corps member, qualified to deal out first aid, CPR, and advice on drug use/community diversity implementation (our training covered all that and more). All of the teams got their team pictures taken wearing our AmeriTuxes (that would be our black battle dress pants with the polo t-shirt), and then we all stood in the old theatre pavillion to take the national service pledge. Really I wish they'd use that pavillion for movies and such because it just sits there. It was probably an entertainment center for the Air Force when they were active here, but now it languishes, unloved. I suppose we can write showing movies up on the "List of Things the US Gov't Doesn't Want to Do for the Humanitarian Branch of the Armed Forces" right under item C) Use the tax-free commisary for grocery shopping and above E) Cook food for them.
But life on the campus is good if slightly slow. Weekends never really exist in Americorps, because Saturday is usually the day everyone goes out to get some ISP (independent service project, e.g. community service) hours done, and Sunday people try to catch up on sleep and go food shopping for the week. Exciting news on the food front: most groups (say 70% of the population here) have left for their respective service projects. That does make it a little empty here, but in many cases they abandoned quite a bit of food that is now free for the plunderin'. Last night alone I got some rainbow sherbert, frech fries, beef brisket, english muffins (to go with the beef), chips, salsa, bran flakes, and some carrots. Total food chaos. I am having a hard time keeping my inner hoarder under control, as he wants to snatch the majority of the foodstuffs not tied down and hide them somewhere. I'm sure I'll survive anyway.
Sunday was great because we played a game of pickup football that lasted about two hours, gaining and losing people over time. It won't happen again for a while (since every team is heading off somewhere to do their SPIKE), but it was awesome to actually run around doing a skill sport for a while, since PT is restricted to and only to "things that are not fun." If you enjoy jumping jacks and running they find an alternative workout for you.
Unfortunately for myself, I tend to play football kind of like ultimate frisbee (limited contact, excessive airtime), and thus I end up executing numerous dive-bomb roll manuevers to stay upright. I say unfortunately because I always end up playing on the "skins" team, so I was just a leeeetle bit itchy post game. But HAH at least my dormitory has hot water, something the other building can't boast of. It's a tradeoff, I have to travel for internet and they freeze to stay clean. The ADMINISTRATION has promised to fix everything eventually. I believe them, ish.
This week shouldn't be so bad because it is chainsaw training for the FRT teams that are still here (just two teams). They told us today the our the motors for the chainsaws we'll be getting could also power a dirtbike. I'm excited.
I need to go write a press release for my teams visit to Catalina Island, since we're so important.
Oh, but I'm serious.

I don’t think I mentioned last time that on Monday when the moving was crazy and all that I cooked with my partner and we completely botched dinner. We tried to make potato gnocchi in our severely understocked kitchen (i.e. without a potato masher) and…yeah well it didn’t turn out so hot, y’know?
We wanted to prep the dumplings ahead of time, so the night before we boiled the potatoes and smooshed them with large metal stirring spoons/drinking cups, depending on personal style, and added the flour, worked it in, nah nah nah. Unfortunately, two baaaaad decisions were made: we decided to freeze the dumplings so we could boil them the next day, and the potatoes were never skinned. Needless to say, the porridge that resulted would have been excellent with a little whole milk, but whole milk is not well loved in these realms.
Meh well I could have internet, but el computadora is currently going crazy, and all things related to the functioning of the internet are flashing etc and refusing to load. Actually, everything is crazy. Enough about the craziness.
So what happened in AmeriCorps today, Sam?
Well, I’m glad you asked that, inexplicably appearing text.
Today was a service day for my team. We headed to a nearby warehouse that collects donated office supplies and assembled, sorted, priced, and bundled some random stuff. Samples? I spent about 30 minutes organizing their stock of rubber fingertips. Also spent most of the day assembling “trash journal” kits with three of my teammates, which consists of hole-punching a bunch of folders and blank sheets of paper and sticking them into a plastic sleeve with some rubber bands. Wasn’t so bad.
My need for wifi is definitely bad for my health. Tuesday night, I was finishing up the team brochure that had to be submitted to out Unit Leader in the morning, and needed to email it. So, laptop tucked comfortably under my arm, I trekked down the stairs in my PJs. Out the door. Across the parking lot. And into the other dormitory lounge, which has wifi oozing out its ears. I emailed the brochure/pamphlet in a few minutes, annnnd then stuck around for about an hour because people were watching The Gladiator. Of course I couldn’t just leave! It was towards the final fight scene with the Emperor!
Unfortunately, this happens to me often when I go to the lounge for a little bit o’ internet late at night, because someone is always watching a movie. Good ones usually, but good movies can’t save me from five hours of sleep.
Something that I recently discovered through much deducing and contemplation is that it’s totally convenient to just drink straight from the milk container. Seeing as it’s my gallon in my fridge, it’s weird that it took about a month for me to have a “eureka!” moment and figure that out. Plus it’s a deterrent to use on anyone else who wants some.
It is getting very hard to leave the window open at night. Not only do some insane teams get up for PT around 5 (usually 5:30 PT, those extra minutes are precious. We are officially doing PT with our teams now, so the schedule is a little more flexible. I think said team was being punished), but there appears to be a very confused bird nesting above our window. Confused because it is early November and there are definitely rather loud chicks making noise up there.
Silly California and your T-shirt weather. It is still, have I mentioned that?
I’m gonna be so damn wimpy when I come home for Christmas.

Trips to Tahoe and Various Movements

Quite a bit has gone on in the last four or so days. This weekend was the first whole weekend Acorps (apparently abbreviating to Acorps is a big media nono, but this is mah blog so pff) that the entire corps has had off. Last Friday was also our first stipend-day (it’s not a payday cause we don’t get paid, *winkwink*), so about 75% of Americorps went off campus to spend some time touristing, partying, and generally spending money. I went to Lake Tahoe with four other friends, and we spent the night in one of the hotels along the lakeside. On top of that, yesterday was moving day, so from about 5pm to 8pm last night the dorms were in chaos. People were carrying stuff into rooms, out of rooms, up the stairs, down the stairs, across the parking lot, and generally creating mayhem as they tried to get settled into a room whose previous residents had not finished moving out of. I’m pretty sure that everything is accounted for in my room.
I also made the mistake of doing laundry on moving day (virtually the only thing between me and nakedness was a pair of windpants and a polo shirt) so that added to my fun. It was a good, crazy, weekend.
Lake Tahoe was pretty amazing. The lake itself is cupped inside a ring of mountains, so on the way there you suddenly gain a couple thousand feet of elevation, come around the side of a peak, and can see the entire Tahoe basin spread out below you. The entire environment has a general aura of crisp coolness and rugged timber. Along the more touristy stretches of the city, even the Taco Bells had a log cabinesque look to them. We spent Saturday afternoon and evening wandering around the city and visiting the more touristy consumer shops, and then packed all of us into a room for the night. Don’t tell the hotel, but there were not actually just two of us in that room.
Sunday we headed up to the mountains to do some light (keyword here) hiking and vista-viewing. Even the road is pretty amazing. There is a point on the way up into the mountains that the road is on the exact top of a ridge, and immediately over each shoulder the slope drops off a good 1000 or more feet. The hike was fun, we had lunch on a gorgeous rock overlooking a stream, and then we headed back to Sacramento.
On a side note, Lake Tahoe is really cold this time of year, especially in the morning, and it takes a very long time to wade out to a depth where you can actually go under.
It’s funny, because currently I’m sitting in my new room (which is almost exactly like my old one on the inside, plus one piece of furniture and rearranging the stains on the mirror), and it is already my room. I have disowned my old room in less than 12 hours. My location is slightly different (less favorable: I’m now on the third floor at the end of the hallway, i.e. as far away as possible from the building exit and laundry, whereas my other room was the closest room to the laundry/exit on the first floor), and the wireless internet must be attracted via the bloody sacrifice of a router, of which I have none to spare.
On a positive if uninteresting note, I figured out that if my computer ever gets pouty and says that it can’t get the wifi network to respond, I just have to reboot. Turns out my Vista OS doesn’t talk well with the slightly older modems here.
So, all is good. Recent additions to my room:
-A potted plant, via the grace of the former residents
-Two giant Tahoe pinecones. I had three, but someone else wanted one very dearly
-A stack of little mini-bios from my teammates, so I can write them into our team pamphlet.
-A bedside lamp (which was lacking in my last room, and in this one I’m leaving it unplugged because outlets are at a premium)

Today was nice and slow. The scheduled stuff for today was specialized training for the individual group roles. The specific roles are jobs that one or two team members within the group take on, like physical training, organizing independent service projects, and maintaining the vehicle and tools. I'm officially the media relations specialist, which means I do all the contacting newspapers, meeting any people who come on site for media stuff, etc. It looks to be pretty cool.
This weekend is the first weekend we've gotten fully off, so a lot of people are going to cities/touristing (I'm going to Tahoe, but that's not the point here). So, there aren't many people cooking dinner in the kitchens, and my group was left to fend for themselves and there isn't much food left. I mean, there is preeeetty much NO food left. We have two potatoes, some canned black beans, tomato paste, pasta, some sandwich meat and odds and ends. However, I just wanted to mention that with those materials (and admittedly a little milk, cheese, and mushrooms pilfered from some other groups. Their contribution to my nutrition is much appreciated) I whipped up a very decent alfredo sauce with ham and mushrooms.
Back last week on monday, when we first got into our official teams, everyone was bemoaning how we would be switching rooms eventually. I still agreee with all the bemoaners, but we had all figured that the admins forgot about the room change since it has been almost two weeks. No such luck, because apparently we have to move on this coming monday, which kind of stinks. This week I perfected my organization routines, with all the jazz about where I put clothes I'll wear again vs dirty clothes etc etc etc. So, general grumble on that front.
And I don't know how many people know about NanoWrimo, but this is National Novel Writing Month. If I were to put in like 1800 words a night (say two pages), I would have something in the range of a wimpy mini-novel. I tried for one night, and I know that I won't be able to do it, primarily because I leave in twenty days for a place with no internet or electricity. So, next year I guess.

Mendocino

Mendocino (turns out I’ve been spelling it wrong this whole time) was a great time. The camp is located about an hour from any kind of civilization in a new-growth redwood forest. I think they said that there was a fire in San Francisco at some point and the entire area around the camp was logged to rebuild it. None of the trees were much bigger than normal New England trees, but there is one huge tree about a mile away from the camp located just off a set of train tracks that run through the camp. I don’t know my history very well for the 4th or 5th century very well, but this tree was probably little when the Visigoths sacked Rome.
Even without the cool trees, Mendocino was awesome. The ROPE course at the camp is 35 feet off the ground, and is a giant playground for adults. The only catch is that you have to wear a harness and clip into guidewires that keep you from dying. Personally, I think I could have been fine without it; the course was only as hard as you made it, but liability is America’s middle name. But I still had fun dangling from the harness, etc.
As to the service work we did at Mendocino: we spent five hours splitting, chopping, and stacking firewood. Since we got to start the splitting from the large segments of whole tree, using sledgehammers to drive in wedges. Lumberjacking extremes. Awesome.
But the special news just arrived tonight: we finally know where we are going on our first project. We are going to be doing trailwork, invasive species management, and general outdoor maintenance on the Island of Catalina. I’ve done a bit of googling and the island is about 27 miles offshore of California right between San Diego and Los Angeles. I’m psyched, because we’ll be luxury camping for three weeks (meaning permanent tents with mattresses, showers, and a kitchen) but no electricity. I am going to be slightly cut off, but in the best possible environment. That, and the fact that I will miss thanksgiving, is the only bad parts about this assignment. We leave on the 23rd of November, and until then I will be doing more training type stuff. Unfortunately.
More tomorrow I’m up far too late for a five ocklock rise.

Wait what?

Tomorrow I’m off to Camp Mendacino, a place with access to ginormous redwood trees and no internet, so I’ll be out till Wednesday. I’m sure I can do a fat blog upon return.
Still el basico stuff going on. We had today off, so we did some ISP hours (that’s Independent Service Project for you heathens, meaning we did community service in our free time. I have to complete 80 hours by the end of the program, 100 for an award). We tidied up a local soup kitchen/shelter and spent a while planting, weeding, and tending a community garden in Sacremento. About eight hours of work in all.
The soup kitchen was interesting. It was a sort of locus for the homeless, as a distributor of food. A couple of blocks out from the kitchen the density of people sleeping under eaves and pushing shopping carts increased dramatically. It’s a social hub for the local homeless population. We spent the day in the school section, which was empty, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to anyone.
If it was an eye opener I would be living a cliché (thank you MSoft word for the glorious accént). I came to Americorps because I know bad things exist. They mellow me. I am happy that I am doing something to alleviate the issues.
So here would be a good place to put my worldplan. I understand the need to change the world: hunger, environmental issues, general human suffering. I understand the fact that change starts with me. But I believe that my potential to change the world far surpasses the effect of my biking to work or living in a self-sustaining yurt.
I want to change the world, and “blah blah blah, change comes from within.”
So, if you want to make the world a greener place, do not withdraw from the system. Do not shun the massive corporations that dump pollutants or the governments that dehumanize millions. Own the corporations. Rule the governments. I do not want fight the system as it is now to try and change it “one person at a time.” I want to be the system.
I will be green personally, I will do good personally. I will not inconvenience myself to an extent that would threaten my ability to access world-shaping resources as quickly as possible.
Viral marketing and subliminal culture control will always trump grassroots movements because the system is the soil.
Whatever. I’m probably too tired to be writing right now. Makes me sound crazy. Till weds.

Soon to Mendacino (sp?)

So nothing really exciting is happening right now. So, I’m gonna do a self-indulgent blog, so I can actually remember the little bits and pieces of this year thirty years from now.
Currently sitting in my 18’x10’ room at the fold-down desk, laptoping away. No internet, so this is just a word doc, I’ll hop over to the other dorm tomorrow to upload it. My roommate is lying in bed (trying to sleep? The lights are still on), and the movie that was playing in the lounge (Austin Powers) ended while I was in the shower. I love that
The only person left in the lounge was one of my former podmates, Dustin. Someone evidently tried to volunteer at the nearby Planned Parenthood recently, because there were a couple of PP condoms lying on the table. They expire in 2014.
When I look back at long periods of my life, one of the things that really connects me to the past is remembering the almost-unnoticeable elements of my everyday routine that I take for granted in the moment.
The way I keep track of my parachute-chord lanyard keychain. My electronic passcard that opens the doors on campus, my Americorps ID, and the key to my room. All strung up on a length of parachute cord I brought and mini-carabineers that rode my backpack for years waiting for moments of use like this. I clip it to my belt loop during the day, and hang it on the end of my bed when I’m in dorm. I know I’d lose it.
I stick my laptop inside the box my steel-toed boots came in whenever I leave the room for a while. Then I push it under the bed and it’s just another piece of teenage organization.
By nine every night I’m exhausted. Combine 5 am wakeup with non-adjustment to west coast time, and you get Sam. Night-owl energy will kick in if I stay up past 11.
Slowly I add produce stickers to my nalgene whenever I find a new one. Apples, bananas, tomatoes, anything with one of those little stickers, as long as it’s new and unique.
The things that I bring with me everywhere: 1 nalgene, 1 cell phone, 1 wallet, 2 pens (one writing, one flow for doodling), 1 handkerchief, 1 lanyard, 1 slip of paper to draw on, and sometimes The Three Musketeers, which I am reading slowly and steadily.
I wear my crocs to shower. Water tends to puddle in the soles, but it can be drained my doing toe-stands before getting out. I’ve never owned a pair of flip-flops.
Tomorrow I’m going to get Google Sketchup and make a model of my room and possibly surroundings. If I have time. Maybe I can even post the file online.
I think my roommate is getting sick. I was sick while he was gone last week, so I hope I already got it and he’s not bringing something new back from the east coast (he went back on emergency leave for family). But hurry care package, which I hope contains vitamin C supplements. My backpack stash (which were probably a few years old anyway) dried up four days ago.
Wooow. Little to long possibly. Bedtime, up at 5:15 for PT

In the beginning, there was Wi-fi. Then, the world was plunged into darkness and connectivity was no more.

Well, I used to get wifi in my room, but now the wifi for my entire building is crazy, so insert mandatory GRUMP here. Sheesh. Who do they think they are, letting internet lapse like this? It's like the networks mate and die overnight. Each time I try to connect there are three new networks and the one that I was using last night is dead. Then again, the new ones never work either.

Other than that, Americorps CTI is becoming routine. Waking up at 5:15 to do physical training is not something I will ever enjoy, but it really makes me appreciate the days when I can sleep until 7:30. To add insult to injury, I already wake up at 5:15 on weekends too.

So I am officially on my permanent team now. I have nine teammates with me on Silver 4, the last of the fuel reduction teams in Silver Unit. We will be spending most of our time outside doing what fires do naturally and slightly more dangerously: removing brush. If we get lucky, we will be doing prescribed burns in areas that we personally dig firebreaks around. A good time in general.

I am excited because on Sunday my entire Unit (8-10 people per team, 6-7 teams per unit) is heading to Camp Mendicino, a Boys and Girls Club camp in a redwood forest, where we will camp out and do service work.

We were issued sleeping bags a while ago, but I hadn’t taken mine out of the (scarily large) stuff sack until this evening. I was confused for a bit, and then I realized that I have never slept in a sleeping bag that wasn’t a mummy bag. I did not recognize this rectangular cut of insulating material for what it was. That said, it seems pretty wimpy, and I think I am going to be very happy that I brought my own bag, which (not to brag or anythang) weighs and takes up half the space of my Ameribag.

The only thing that makes me sad right now is that

a) I don’t have a hammock for this trip

b) Even if I did, I don’t have the rope to tie one around a redwood

But, FTR, I strung a laundry line up in my room today. Fire hazards be damned.

CPR, Mongolian food, and the glories of the internet

First, let me note that I got called by a red cross trolling program when I moped about boredom. I love the internet. Day one: Sam complains. Day two: red cross weber tells Sam he best do something if he's so dang whiny. Very nice.

I am now officially certified for CPR and the use of AED's. Thas right, I can zap people back to life if their heart ever goes funky. Learning CPR was ok, it wasn't a blast, because my respect for the instructor had gone a small ways downhill after his first appearance. He tended to make slightly silly jokes that made me, in my "gosh why can't they just feed me pure data" bitterness, annoyed. But he got better towards the end, and their was a woman who had been a medic for a firefighting department for 20+ years who had loads of experiences to offer, and plus she brought CANDY. She knew very well how to win me over.

I'd say the main issue I have with the lessons is that almost all of what they are teaching is stuff I will a) forget soon, and then b) if any problem occurs, will think of on my own. (i.e.= someone bleeding? check it. Treatable? Treat it. Not? Call 9-1-1 and do what I can, like compression, tourniquet). The only really handy stuff was CPR and what not to do in the event of a poisonous snake bite (DO NOT ice it, snakes are cold blooded and their venom does just fine, thanks). But even then, in the event that someone is bitten by, say, a coral snake (deadly numero uno), Sam has been told to call 9-1-1 and put a bandaid over it. Thanks, lesson, I might not have thought of putting a bandaid on a poisonous snake bite.

Whining and pining aside, one of my podmates had his birthday on the 22, and we all went out to a really cheap mongolian/chinese/vietnamese place where, for $6, you can fill a large bowl to overflowing with meats and veggies and sauces and then have them fry it up on a huge hot stone. It was really delicious, and, budget permitting, I'll be heading there again.

Today in Sacramento (actually yesterday at this point) was Make a Difference Day, part of the city-wide initiative for getting individuals active in serving the community. So Americorps was out there doing varieties of projects. I have heard: helping plant/play with kids at disadvantaged schools, picking nuts and apples to help clear government land, and for me and my pod, working in a massive food warehouse. This warehouse, run by Senior Gleaners, takes food from supermarkets that don't meet the wicked stringent quality standards of the food industry (like one broken packaging=entire batch trashed, day old bread, etc) and redistributes all that would-be waste to the homeless and poor. They service over 400 (I think) organizations that provide for impoverished people DAILY. Their facilities were enormous, and I was really cool to see how large such an organization, for such a cause, can get. Granted, I spend the entire day wiping rejected soda cans down with bleach and a cloth to be reshelved (and I don't consider providing soft drinks to the homeless a really earthshaking bit), but I was still doing my part to help them save man-hours. We repackaged ~2426 soda cans, and threw out ~400 that were unsalvageable. It was pretty sticky work.

But tomorrow I finally get to sleep a bit, so I'm psyched. And, I had thought I lost my plate today (we have to provide our own dishware) but I found it three kitchens over on top of a fridge.

Pack test agogo (is that how you spell agogo? I don't think so.)

Okay. So. The pack test for the Fuel Reduction Team ("FRT") was deeefinitely harder than I expected. Since FRT corpsmembers must be able to haul copious amounts of brush, dirt, and rock, to even get your name into the acceptance process for FRT teams you must complete a 3-mile trek wearing a 45lb weight vest, and you must complete said trek in under 45 minutes. Except, there's this catch: if you run, you're disqualified.

Now, I will valiantly save you from having to do any sort of math in your head, unless you've jumped the gun and already figured out that I would have to walk at a brisk 4mph in order to make the time cut. And they were strict, some people finished at 45:03 and they did not pass the test.

The good news is that I passed the test, speedwalker that I am. The bad news is that my butt still hurts, four days later, from having to vamanos my legs so fast. I think I was moving as fast as I physically can without breaking contact with the ground.

Recently (say like yesterday and monday), all the corpsmembers have been going through the various courses we need before we can become official NCCC personnel. This means approximately 6-9 hours a day in a chair, being talked to. The worst so far was our Red Cross Introduction to Disaster Response course, which unfortunately consisted of common sense and videos of people driving around and delivering food to disaster victims. I'm pretty sure it's a well-known fact that if you try to teach people common sense, they will either have a revelation as their entire common-sense foundation is ripped apart, or they will fall asleep. My POD leader took some funny pictures of me and two podmates snoozing, fun guy that he is.

Fortunately we get CPR training on friday. Hopefully I'll never use it but it will be great to know it. Today was not quite as enlightening, but I learned two very important things:

I am not a volunteer. I am an NCCC member.

I do not get paid. I get a living allowance.

What this makes me tax-wise, I'm not entirely sure.

First bits of community service stuff accomplished

Quick Acorps glossarying: Pod=the temporary teams that volunteers are put in while everyone is processed through the system (i.e. drug tested/generally tested). They are usually say 10-12 people.

So my Pod (a very cool bunch of people if I don't say so myself) had our first service project on friday. We went to an adult school--school for mentally handicapped adults--and worked in their nature area. The primary thing on the agenda was the "pruning" (read:culling) of their massively overgrown blackberry bushes. We spent a good three hours hacking down about 80 sq ft of wickedly thorny bushes, a process which claimed one pole saw, one rake, and a large amount of skin from our collective forearms. Later we worked around lugging cinderblocks to help build a raised garden and then we did some invasive species removal.

A very productive day overall, but it made me realize one of the main reasons I want to try for the firefighting team is that while tending gardens in adult schools is an excellent thing to do, it is not the difference I want to make in the world. Or at least not the difference I want to make during my time in Americorps. I would love to be on the front lines during natural disasters handing out care packages. But I can't ensure that a disaster will happen. So I would love to do firefighting since it almost guarantees that I will at least be camping somewhere, and possibly fighting GIANT FOREST-EATING FIRES.

In other news, today was the first day we cooked for ourselves. With the schedule, my partner and I will be cooking on friday (I think she wants to do pasta with Bolognaise sauce, which sounds good to me). Tonight our group leader cooked some delicious potatoes and a turkey soup that was kind of like turkey meatballs with herbs suspended in hot. Definitely filling and nutritious, but leaving something to be desired. But our budget for breakfast/lunch/dinner is $4.50 per person per day (yeah you read that right, everybody get to eat $4.50 worth of food each day), so I guess if shoestrings fill me up than that's where I'll go.

Tomorrow is free except for the firefighter (actually it's called the fuel reduction team, since we do brushhauling if there isn't any fire. P.C. and all that) 3-mile weighted pack test, which should be cool.

Short disclaimer: I just realized reading this that I have an inability to write without being kind of sarcastic/cynical. Rest assured it is all a sham. Americorps rocks. I mean, come on.

It's volunteer service you get paid for.

Settled in ish

So, as usual on this kind of thing, everyone noticed the high density of 18-24 year olds in the waiting area at chicago and thus I got to meet some other corps members early. Long flight, etc, got to old air force base around 2:00. I'm currently all unpacked, possibly may need more shelf space, but maybe not.

Worst things about today:

-first flight was rather cramped

-the banana I packed got skooshed before I got to eat it

-I was really beginning to enjoy New England fallish weather

-do not yet own a shower caddy and/or collapsing hamper and/or laundry detergent. Cleanliness will be strenuous

-room is on the bottom floor: it is "highly suggested" that we not leave our window open at night

Best things about today:

-Apparently we do not have to wake up at 5:30 until next week

-Wifi reaches my room

-It is only my roommate and I in a three-person room. One of the bigger ones, too. And a team leader just stopped by and is going to take the extra bed off our hands. Eeeeexcellent

-My winter break may start on December 18th

-I currently own some steel-toed boots that would be adequate defense if a statue came to life in a threatening way nearby

All is well and good in Acorps land. I need some snacks

Live!

Well, hay-rah, I now have a blog. Since it looks so darn lonely right now, and I'm just so proud of being able to beat some aspects of the HTML template into submission (yeah, I'm that bad with HTML), I think there needs to be a champagne bottle broken across the bow right about here. Also, my gato favorito, Rusty, is currently snoozing across me chest, and I'd feel a bit guilty moving him.

Six months ago, I found out that I had completely botched my application to Americorps. Essentially, there was a big button online that read "click here to submit application." I did everything except click that button.

Five months ago I made it back into the Americorps system via the grace of one of the applicant coordinators, albeit as an alternate. My only shot at getting in was as a filler for someone else who dropped out.

Two months ago Americorps was dead to me. Various sources on the internet reported that the five regional campuses had been filled and the alternates had been chosen. I had not. If I still checked the mail, it was for the same reasons that some people play the lottery; somewhere, sometime, somehow, someone will win.

Two weeks ago I got accepted to the Pacific Region Campus in Sacremento. I don't usually celebrate things, but a good image would be Sam attempting to punch holes in the ceiling with his head.

Now I have about 56 hours until my flight leaves.

Methinks I will go pack